ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews formal versus informal organizational communication as well as macro and micro organizing as phenomena that construct opportunities and constraints. True inclusion involves changing such tendencies and transforming existing institutional norms and structures to listen to “others” rather than expecting “others” to conform and blend in. Obama’s experience at Princeton is an example of organizational initiatives falling short by emphasizing diversity over inclusion. Inclusion under such circumstances reproduces whiteness. When diverse people communicate, white people may feel uncomfortable. Implicit bias is evident in hiring and promotion practices that privilege managers’ as well as academics’ own homophilous social networks, and in global team structures that serve as microcosms for geo-political inequalities that create status differences among team members based n their country location. For this reason, both top-down and bottom-up approaches are needed for organizing inclusion. The chapter also presents an overview of key concepts discussed in this book.
